Renata Calabresi: The experimental analysis of the present.

Abstract

Between the 1920s and 1930s, Renata Calabresi conducted pioneering laboratory researches on the nature, extensity, and quality of the psychic present. Her analyses stemmed from the Central European tradition initiated by Stern, Brentano, Meinong, and Benussi. Her work has remained largely unrecognized, because of both the decline of the underlying theoretical paradigm, namely descriptive psychology, and the historical events of the time that swept aside the lives of those involved. This article presents her researches on the roots of phenomenal consciousness. She proved that in the subjective time there occur perceptual events that are at least partially independent from those of the time of objective sequences. Subjective and objective time, therefore, do not flow in unison, and the continuum of perceptive sequences has modalities of existence that differ from those of the continuum of physical sequences.

Experimental phenomenology meets brain information processing: Vividness of voluntary imagery, consciousness of the present, and priming.

“…Yet, Bonaventura and Calabresi foreshadowed themes and methods in the fields of iconic memory and working memory (Albertazzi, 2011). The latter aspect is not trivial since it suggests that in their research practice, they followed a cross contamination of experimental phenomenology and precursors of information processing Bonaventura, Calabresi, and the late Benussi (1925, i.e., his psychophysiological studies on breathing) also shared an interest in correlating psychophysiology and biological rhythms to phenomenology.…”

“…Yet, Bonaventura and Calabresi foreshadowed themes and methods in the fields of iconic memory and working memory (Albertazzi, 2011). The latter aspect is not trivial since it suggests that in their research practice, they followed a cross contamination of experimental phenomenology and precursors of information processing methodology.…”

Remerciements

“…18. Calabresi, 1930Albertazzi, 2011. qui diriga le laboratoire florentin jusqu'en 1938, travaillait sur les illusions de l'introspection (1915), le traitement des signes locaux dans la perception sensorielle, les illusions optico-géométriques (1920), le temps psychique (1929), l'espace psychique (1961), la mémoire immédiate (1905), le rythme et la perception tactilo-kinesthésique (1931), et la psychologie clinique (1938). Il produisit également des études historiques et épistémologiques (1916).…”

8. De l’intentionnalité à la théorie de l’objet

“…18. Calabresi, 1930Albertazzi, 2011. qui diriga le laboratoire orentin jusqu'en 1938, travaillait sur les illusions de l'introspection (1915), le traitement des signes locaux dans la perception sensorielle, les illusions optico-géométriques (1920), le temps psychique (1929), l'espace psychique (1961), la mémoire immédiate (1905), le rythme et la perception tactilo-kinesthésique (1931), et la psychologie clinique (1938). Il produisit également des études historiques et épistémologiques (1916).…”